Biomaterial film to promote wound healing after burns.

What is it about?

Severe burn injuries can lead to delay in healing and devastating scar formation. Attempts are made to develop a suitable skin substitute for scarless healing of such skin wounds. Currently, there is no effective strategy yet for a complete scarless healing after the thermal injuries. In our recent work we fabricate and evaluated a 3D protein-based artificial skin made from decellularized human amniotic membrane (AM) and electrospun nanofibrous silk fibroin (ESF) in vitro. We also characterize both biophysical and cell culture investigation to establish in vitro performance of the developed bilayer scaffolds. In this report we evaluate finally about the appropriate utility of this fabricated bi-layered artificial skin in vivo with particular reference to healing and scar formation due to biochemical and biomechanical complexities of the skin. For this work. AM, AM/ESF alone or seeded with adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AT-MSCs) are implanted to full thickness burn wounds in mice. The healing efficacy and scar formation are evaluated at 7, 14 and 28 days post-implantation in vivo. Our data reveal that ESF accelerates wound healing process through early recruitment of inflammatory cells such as macrophages into the defective site, as well as up-regulation of angiogenic factors from the AT-MSCs and facilitation of remodeling phase. In vivo application of the prepared AM/ESF membrane seeded with the AT-MSCs reduces significantly the post-burn scars. The in vivo data suggest that the potential applications of the AM/ESF bi-layered artificial skin may be considered as a clinically translational product with stem cells to guide scarless healing of sever burn injuries.

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Why is it important?

The films produced significantly reduce post-burn scarring.

Perspectives